GameCentral gets to play the first next gen-only Batman game and get behind the wheel of the brand new Batmobile.

We’ve no doubt that Arkham Knight is going to turn out to be one of the best games of next year, but we’ve already given up all hope of it being the ‘ultimate Batman game’ that developer Rocksteady originally promised. Which creates an interesting question: does it actually matter how much a title diverges from its source material if it still ends up being a great game?

The answer to that is unequivocally ‘no’. But we feel the point is worth raising because as good as Arkham Knight appears to be it’s absolutely not what we were expecting from a next gen sequel. Our biggest qualm continues to be the fact that you still don’t really get to explore Gotham City under normal conditions. The whole city is now in the game but it’s been evacuated and there are no ordinary civilians left, just criminals and the odd unlucky public servant.

Unfortunately there wasn’t really anyone to interrogate about this at E3, with director Sefton Hill reportedly not even present at the show. Instead we ended up talking to lead animator Zafer Coban (literally everyone at Rocksteady has a name like a Star Wars bounty hunter), who was perfectly nice but was clearly not the one calling the shots. Although we did manage to drag some comment out of him.

‘I dunno if it will actually create much gameplay, in terms of how you want to drive it forward’, he said. ‘Like, we want to put in as many key figures, iconic figures, heroes and villains in the mix, that keep it really interesting. I think people would be more interested in seeing Two-Face or whoever, as opposed to, like, random Joe’.

We’re not sure why you couldn’t just have both though, since it means that through all three games there’s never been a point where Batman can just go on patrol as normal and do his bread and butter work of stopping muggings and bank heists. Instead Arkham Knight fills the city with criminals and the titular villain Arkham Knight… who not only has his own private army but a fleet of sci-fi style helicopter drones and tanks that have to be blown up with the Batmobile’s minigun.

At times it’s only Kevin Conroy’s voiceover that reminds you this is a Batman game at all. And the inclusion of these shoot ’em-up elements not only seem to go directly against Batman’s whole ethos but are a clear extension of the sort of dudebro (Batbro, if you will) version of the character, that has become progressively more dehumanised as the series goes on. This is emphasised in the art design too, with even Commissioner Gordon having biceps like a silverback gorilla and the villains appearing to lack any ounce of humanity or vulnerability.

And even as we say all this we’re nowhere near the world’s biggest Batman fans, we just like the animated series and appreciate the complexity of the main character and his supporting cast. We’re just worried that none of this really seems to be showing through in a game that appears more interested in cramming in as much noise and explosions into every minute of gameplay.

Still, they are very well orchestrated explosions and at E3 we got to watch a hands-off demo and then continue on from where it left off on our own. The demo seems to be from fairly early on in the game, where Batman is trying to track down the Scarecrow – who it’s revealed is not only targeting Gotham but the whole of the US eastern seaboard.

This section of the game is set around the Ace Chemicals plant (a nice little nod to the comics) and starts with Batman throwing out a special batarang that flies around the area and scans for captured civilians (which Batman monitors by using his wrist computer, as his eyes go white in the process – another nice node to his comic portrayal).

Early on it looks like the action is going to play out much like any of the other Arkham games. The graphics are a clear step forward though, with some of the best rain effects we’ve ever seen in a game and an absurd level of detail that is obvious everywhere you look. (According to Coban this is why the game was delayed until next year, and we see no reason to doubt him – especially as the slowdown problems evident during the reveal seem to have disappeared.)

But as Batman drops into a group of thugs it becomes clear that the Batmobile is even more integral to the gameplay than we first assumed, with a special finisher move allowing it to attack enemies while you’re fighting. There’s also a neat new dragon punch for Batman, which looks slightly silly but proves hugely entertaining to use when we have a go afterwards.

The hands-off demo ends with the appearance of the Arkham Knight, who’s brand new and was created just for the game. He looks and acts like a militarised version of Batman and the angry-at-your-parents style dialogue will instantly have everyone assuming he is Robin (or one of them, there’s been a few in the comics). We just hope the game isn’t that obvious, but the fact that Rocksteady are this time writing the story themselves leaves that aspect of the game as as unknown quantity.

When it’s time for our go the action picks up straight after Arkham Knight has been sent packing by a missile barrage from the Batmobile, and we’re left trying to rescue the remaining civilians – although most of them seem to have already been killed. Here again the Batmobile’s importance to the game goes up another notch, as we discover it’s also involved in many of the puzzles.

Batman: Arkham Knight – tanks for nothing

Batman has his explosive gel and detective vision as usual, but at several points he has to use a grapnel on the Batmobile to pull out a section of pipe that’s blocking his way, and in another section there’s a lift’s counterweight that has to be pulled up so that you can get through and down a lift shaft. The Batmobile can be controlled by remote control at any time and from any location, and we defy anyone not to let out a sigh of geeky satisfaction when they try it for the first time.

All the more so because controlling the Batmobile is such fun. As already revealed it has two modes, with the default handling like a normal car and coming equipped with a turbo boost to jump over various handily placed ramps. But hit the shoulder button and the car transforms into sort of anti-gravity gun platform that is hugely entertaining just to slide around the game world. (We’re not actually sure it’s anti-gravity per se, but it feels like it – we’re assuming it’s not on shopping trolley wheels anyway.)

According to Coban around 60 to 50 per cent of the game will involve the Batmobile in some way, which is in danger of overshadowing Batman himself. Although turning on the turbo boost and setting off the ejector seat to soar through the air is arguably the coolest thing in the game, especially as you can now glide for much longer than before.

Just as we’re beginning to think all our concerns are unwarranted though we get to a part of the game where we’re basically just gunning down bad guys with a minigun. Sure, they’re supposed to be rubber bullets but we’re still shooting enemies with a gun, who never get back up again – which seems a very non-Batman kind of a thing to do. (No, you can’t run them over, they just get knocked back by an electric shock put out by the Batmobile’s chassis.)

From there though things just get even stranger with a face off against a dozen remote control Arkham Knight tanks, which is so oddly out of place it seems to have been beamed in from some Sega arcade shooter. It’s also extremely simplistic, as you shoot tanks with low powered rounds in order to charge up a Panzer Dragoon style multishot missile barrage.

Batman has been through so many interpretations over the last several decades that there is no definitive version of the character and his universe, and certainly he’s done things far more out of character than this before (we suspect the whole rubber bullet thing was inspired by The Dark Knight Returns) but it still doesn’t sit right with us. Not when this is supposed to be Rocksteady’s last outing with the character.

Perhaps it’s just being taken out of context – E3 demos are notorious for focusing only on action, whether that’s representative of the final game or not – but from what we’ve played we get the impression Rocksteady has lost interest in Batman’s universe and are just doing their own thing now. We’re sure that’ll result in a great game but we’re not sure it’ll be a great Batman game.